A Sweet Note

This morning school work has been very challenging for Elie and I. We're on the last lesson in her first book and soon we'll be starting a new book - which has her totally excited - but is also very distracting. She's been having a really hard time buckling down and doing very simple tasks... and I got frustrated enough that I needed to walk away.

I'm not asking Elie to do things she can't do or hasn't already done many times, so I gently told her that she wasn't going to be able to play until she completed her task at hand, and that I needed to step away for a little while. I came and sat down at the computer to breathe a minute, feeling very good about myself for keeping a calm voice and not taking my frustration out on her. About 30 seconds later Elie softly padded over and put her little hand on my shoulder. "Mom," she whispered, "did I hurt your feelings?"

Now I know something is getting through!! I just melted. What a sensitive little creature my daughter is. We made things right between us and it took her literally 2 minutes to complete her work. As I type she is cheerfully cutting and pasting (the fun part of school), completing her last and final pages in her book, while keeping Jadon laughing.

Praise God for His kindness that leads us to repentance and His wisdom in asking us to mimic Him... I am far from perfecting His kindness toward my family in moments of frustration or anger - but I am so grateful for this tiny glimpse of the blessings He intends toward me when I obey!!

Never Ending

It is almost comical that I'd be writing this... but we lost both crabs... apparently their little tryst was too much for both of them... We also lost our mama guppy. So sad. We're gearing up to make some big changes for out tank... but for now we have our beta fish and two more guppies still swimming. I guess this is a good lesson for us! Don't get into something we don't have the slightest clue about!! :o)

The Drama continues!

This morning we woke up to some trouble in the tank... our little crab was on it's back with it's little feet all splayed out, so we assumed it was dead. We removed it from the tank and noticed that it still moved and twitched, so we let it be for a while, just chilling in the net.

About an hour later Bryce decided it was time to return it to the water, as it was more active. We went for Elie's doctor appointment and when we returned we found this! In case you can't make it out... there are two crabs here. Our big one is on top of our small one, who had resumed it's upside down position - apparently we have a male and a female crab and something in the air (water) told them it was mating season!

After about 20 minutes everyone is okay - right side up and back to usual...
Baby crabs anyone??

And more good news, all three guppies are alive and doing well, so far as we can tell.

Here is our pregnant guppy - you can see the dark spot by her tummy, where her tail starts - that is all the baby guppies eyes, supposedly (all the things you can learn on the internet!).

And here's our beautiful female beta fish.

What a tank we own! So many amazing things going on over here.

Happy Easter!

This was our first Easter celebrating with just our family of four, and we loved it! This was actually our first ever holiday to celebrate together just the four of us. As much as we miss family, when we lived within 20 minutes of both sides we always split holidays between the two. Even after moving out here we've not spent a holiday alone. We really liked this change of pace and look forward to continuing in a few of the traditions we started:o). That's not to say we didn't miss family this year - we did!

Our Easter morning started with Church, at Rush Creek Bible. Elie and Jadon came home with tons of stories of the empty tomb and questions about what it means to "resurrection":o). After church we let the kids find their Easter baskets and while they played with their new things Bryce and I made supper together. We prepared a few new dishes and had fun experimenting:o).

We had fun decorating eggs after supper and then letting the kids hunt for them. We also hid resurrection eggs this year. Something new for us. After the hunt we all sat down for Easter cake, Easter basket candy, and the kids took turns opening the resurrection eggs while Bryce read the passages and story corresponding with each one. They were totally captivated and I think having the tiny items in each egg to play with helped keep them interested.

It was really cool to see both Elie and Jadon involved and excited about the Easter story and what Jesus did for us all. So cool to see them both digesting and each understanding different pieces. We loved the resurrection eggs and letting the kids hunt for those, and found it to be such a great activity to do during desert. We got ours from Family Life Ministries - but my mother-in-law made her own set at one point, if anyone is interested.

After the kids were in bed and things were picked up and back to normal, Bryce and I settled into a movie (Enchanted) and we were asleep by 9pm!! The earliest we've been asleep in years. All in all it was a great day - a perfect holiday:o).

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention... we played in the snow!! I cannot remember an Easter weekend, ever in my life, where we could play in snow. Crazy. Oh well... it was fun at least:o).

Guppies??

We may have a pregnant guppy after all!! I checked things out online and I think we may even have two pregnant guppies... and if all goes well - such as they are comfortable in our tank and not too stressed (and don't get eaten) - we may end up with baby guppies in a few weeks! So exciting. We've moved a tree to float at the top of the tank for the babies to hide in. Guppies are live born and have a high mortality rate (that just cracked me up!), and need lost of greenage to hide in for the first month.

So hopefully we'll have some good news in a few weeks time:o)!

Snowing Again & New York

We just returned from a trip to New York, where it snowed! We were all set to enjoy a day at Niagara Falls. However, with the weather we experienced I decided that a day viewing large bodies of water wouldn't be so good. But the trip was fruitful and fun anyway:o). The kids and I traps a mall where we got to see the Easter Bunny and watch a large carousel (which would have cost an exorbitant amount of money to ride). Unfortunately I forgot our camera... so no pictures of New York.

We drove home excited to get back to the melting piles of snow and the "warmer" weather and guess what! It's now snowing here!! The kids are happy, and played in it today - but I'm so ready for spring to come!!!

Here are some pictures of the kids playing before it started snowing. The yard is now completely white again and it's too cold for them to be outside. :o(

Independence

Have you ever had that moment, as a mom, where your heart is racing because your child is not responding to your increasingly urgent calls?

That just recently happened to me. My daughter had a birthday party to attend down the street at a neighbor's house. My husband walked her down and my son and I continued our little chores around the house.
Jadon was content to be in the living room picking up his cars (upon threat of loosing them to the time-out bin), so I took a load of laundry down stairs, intent on getting as many loads done as possible. I was only gone about five minutes and came upstairs to all the cars picked up, but Jadon was no where to be found. With visions of an intruder having carried him off, I was running room to room yelling at the top of my lungs after about 15 seconds of calmly and rationally calling his name. By chance I glanced outside, and caught sight of a little hat. I looked at the front door, it was open... the glass screen door slightly ajar.

I crammed on my husband's shoes and raced out the door yelling Jadon's name.

"What, Mommy?" he answered blithely, coming around a bush that had blocked my view of him from the window. I ordered him to my side, none to patiently. His big eyes filled with tears as he obediently walked my way, his boots on the wrong feet and one glove missing. I noticed that he'd put on his own coat too (something we have to pull teeth to get him to do when we're in a hurry to get out the door), and had his hat on as well. Good kid, I thought, he got boots, coat, hat and at least one of two gloves on before going outside.

"Where were you going? Why did you leave the house?" I asked as he stood in front of me.
"I-I-I-I need to catch up to Daddy. He-He-He-He left me!" Jadon was crying in earnest now.

Meanwhile Bryce had seen Jadon walking down the street on his own and was running toward us. Jadon looked so dejected and upset that I swallowed my fear and anger and took his hand, leading him to the front steps, as Bryce caught up with us.

"Good job picking up all your cars before you left," I said, cuddling him beside me, taking off his boots and glove. He paused in his hick-uping tears to smile radiantly at me. "Did you put your boots and coat on all by yourself?"
He nodded and ran his sleeve under his runny nose as I removed his coat.
"Good Job." My heart was returning to it's normal pace and Bryce was catching his breath by now. Jadon gave us another radiant smile through his tears, now just a random trickle down his cheek.

"Jadon, did you leave the house by yourself?" Bryce asked. Jadon nodded but didn't look at his Daddy. We launched into a gentle discussion of why 3-year-old boys shouldn't leave their homes without a Mommy or Daddy with them. Jadon listened very intently. When we were through he looked up at Bryce and said, "Daddies shouldn't leave their-their-their boys at home," and the tears filled his eyes again, though he didn't start crying. "I-I-I-I just, well, I-I-I just wanted to catch up with you, cubie you left without me!" His look was like a hurt puppy-dog as he squared his eyes with Bryce's.

Well, at that point I let Bryce and Jadon deal it out, and with apologies and promises they reconciled. But I still had to square things up with Jadon.

"Jadon, Mommy was really scared when I couldn't find you in the house. Your choices hurt Mommy's feelings," I started.
Jadon was quick. "I-I-I, well, I'm sorry I hurt you Mommy. Will you forgive me?"

How in the world could I not!!! Oh for the love of sons. What would life be like without them? My son is indeed coming into his own independence, in more ways that one.

Another loss

We lost our pregnant guppy this afternoon. Jadon and I cozied up in front of the tank to watch for a few minutes and noticed our smaller crab acting funny. On closer inspection he was holding and eating the pregnant guppy. Jadon was very concerned that we get her out and into the toilet, so that is exactly what we did. So no baby guppies!

Fish Update

We lost another fish... so sad. Actually we lost two. Our sucker fish died last night. Perhaps our tank is still too clean?? I have no idea. But this morning we caught our large crab eating Elie's fish, which was a little purple painted glass something-or-other that she'd named Emma. So sad! She cried for a good half hour.

We still have five guppies (no babies yet, though the one we think is pregnant looks like she's going to burst), a female beta and our green painted glass something-or-other - plus the two crabs and Goldy, who is living downstairs on Bryce's desk all by itself.

I had no idea caring for a fish tank would be so full of drama!

Tank

So here's the tank... with all living fish! Yay! Everyone is doing great so far... no baby guppies yet though. Too bad you can't really see the fish - though there is one near the top of the tank.

Fish Tank

So has anyone else ever had a fish tank?

We managed to kill off the first round of fish - all, that is, except a huge gold fish named Goldy, who was supposed to die off within the first 3 weeks of getting the tank up and running (something about new tanks killing fish... so we got 4 cent feeder fish to do the job). However, Goldy picks on all the other fish, so he/she is now in a little plastic fish bowl of his/her own...

And we are currently on round 3 or 4 of fish... mainly because our second round of fish died the same day we put them in the tank, (one of them couldn't swim right side up, and was soon eaten by our large crab) and our 3rd round was eaten by our dog... yup - eaten by our dog while in the car, not having even seen their new home! We did not see that one coming. But we've always thought Simmea acted more like a cat at times. Guess this goes to prove that thought!

So now, we have safely placed five guppies, all doing quite nicely, two painted glass something-or-others, a female beta - which was free because the store person couldn't get her out of the net when catching the guppies - a sucker fish, which has a technical name my husband can tell you about, and finally, two crabs into our tank. One of the crabs just molted his shell which was a great science lesson:o)! And we're pretty sure one of our guppies is pregnant, and we've been told they have live births... so that should be interesting. We are on day 3 of everyone staying alive and no one getting eaten... yay!

Anyway, that's the most exciting normal thing going on around our house these days. If anyone has any advice on fish tanks we'd love to hear it! And if anyone has some advice on how to explain all the goings on of fish life and death to the 3-year-old owner of the tank - we'd really appreciate it! (Never thought we were giving our son a lesson in death for his birthday!!!)

Quite the weekend!

Wow! What a week/weekend we just had. My sisters are both adopted, and about 6 years ago my youngest sister actually met her birth parents. Our whole family road tripped down to southern Cal to support her.

My middle sister, Ali, just recently decided to try and find her birth parents. Well, she did, rather suddenly - and they happen to live here in Michigan!!! So this last week/weekend she and my mom stayed in Grand Haven/ Spring Lake area (on the coast of Lake Michigan, for those non-Michiganders:o), while meeting not only her birth mother, but aunts, uncles, cousins and half-brothers!

I don't have any pictures to post at this time... but it was quite an experience! I got to be involved in most of the events, and Ali had a very good, though intense, time. It was very positive, as far as a reuniting could be. The birth family is very nice, warm and accepting, as well as very respectful of my parents and very grateful.

At the same time we had Bryce's Dad come out for a visit. I think he had good time, as he spent most of it with Bryce and the kids. It was really good to see him again. He plans on getting married August 15th of this summer, so that was exciting news as well.

Everyone went home yesterday morning, and so far as I know arrived safely:o). We are taking a day of pj's and movies and picking up around the house after all the whirlwind events. Whew! What a week!

Home again Home again...

Yay! We made it home. After an extra night in Kentucky, where our car started breaking down (still not fixed yet, because the part would have taken a week to arrive), we have finally limped home. I guess after touring most of the lower 48 states, we can't complain... as this is the first car trouble we've had. And, we were in the best hotel to be unexpectedly delayed in:o)! It was so new some of the windows still had those new window stickers on them. There was that new construction smell when you walked in the door - and no marks, stains or mystery gunk anywhere to be found! The blankets were brand new. Oh, it was so nice!!! We still slept with our own linens, but it was nice knowing how new and clean everything was:o).

Our trip to the Creation Museum was a total hit. We arrived in time for lunch, and spent close to 5 hours exploring the place. It is a wonder! It's so nice to have the Biblical perspective in such an amazingly creative and awesome place, totally rivaling many of the other museums we've been in, as far as scope and grandeur. (And we've seen many museums!:o)

Tonight we are nestled cosily back in our home, still covered in snow, but less of it. Elie asked how much longer it would take to have warm weather and when we told her, she said, "oh, that's forever!" Kinda feels that way now, after having such great weather in the south.

Well, I'll leave you with a couple of videos from our trip, just for fun:o). The first one is of an ostrich and a giraffe, both of which felt close enough to touch at times... Jadon wanted to try:o). The next one is of the hippo, which we got to see eat, but they closed the door and the light for the camera video was gone... so we didn't get to record that event:o(. The third is a bit of the rhino fun:o).